Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/76

56 means let us hear how Larkyns was improving the shining hours."

Charles Larkyns took a pull at his pipe and another at his pewter, and said, "So you want to know what I was doing with myself yesterday? Then, lend me your ears, and list, list, oh, list!"

"That 's quite the recruiting sergeant," observed Mr. Bouncer. "Now Charley, unfold your tale, there 's a good old doggie." And he patted Buz's head, who took the observation as intended for himself.

"You must know, then, my beloved friends, and all whom it may concern," said Charles Larkyns, "that I went down to Nuneham, with some men, in a house boat. I daresay, altogether, there were about fifty of us, and Smirke, of Balliol, was there. He is a man who gets excited on a bottle of pop; and, as he had injudiciously mixed his liquors, although he had not taken much, yet the little he had imbibed had got into his head, and made him unusually hilarious. Just after we had started on our way home, I was sitting by him, and when some one offered him some claret-cup I advised him not to touch it, but to have a drink of water if he felt thirsty. 'Would the water be best for me, do you think?' said Smirke! 'because, if so, I had better have a good draught.' And, with that, before I could stop him, he jumped on to the side of the boat, and took a header into the river. We knew that he was a first-rate swimmer; so we were not alarmed at his thus taking a bath with his clothes on; and he very soon appeared on the surface, puffing and blowing like a grampus. We quickly pulled him on board, and he was taken into the cabin, where he shook himself out of his wet clothes, and was rigged out in a new suit by subscription. One